Put yourself in mindset of your customers when keyword planning for schools (parents) and try to think about the type of keywords they would typically use in a search. Done correctly your keywords planning for schools should match the inquiry/search words your customers would use also in order to find your products or services.

Remember to think like your customer when you writing your keyword planning for schools list. For starters jot down your business sector and any sub sectors that it could include.

For example Education, Schools, International Schools, International primary schools in UAE. Then write down the other words terminology and catch phrases that might also come under this business sector. Again think in the mind set of your potential customer and what (old and new) phrases and terms they would use.

 

For Example If you are promoting a school, you would start off with some broader list of words parents may use like “International Schools.” You could also add “International Schools English speaking” and if you realise these are commonly used  terms for your product/service then increase your list further by including type of curriculum “International British Curriculum Schools”.  Keep thinking about what likely search words your customer (or a parent) would use. Select specific keywords to target specific parents. Select more specific keywords that directly relate to your ad’s theme if you want to target parents who may be interested particular child’s age such as Nursery, Pre-kindergarten, Primary, secondary, IB Curriculum, Learning support etc. However by using too many specific keywords can also be counter productive. The trick is not to become too detailed or specific otherwise there may not be enough parents typing those words/phrase so your Ad will not be served by the algorithms.

Example If you are promoting an international school, you might choose specific keywords like “British Curriculum School,” a specific international type of school. That way, for example, your ad would appear when someone searches for this category of school or visits a website about international schools.  The more general the keywords the more people they will reach. Bear in mind that you might struggle to find certain customers (parents)  when using very broad keywords. This is because your ad could appear for searches that aren’t always related to your business for example international schools could appear for a recruitment search. Furthermore, general keywords will be more expensive as they will be higher in demand and most likely require higher bid amounts.  Try to run some short tests of general keywords, to determine which ones give a better results. No matter how general your keywords are, they should always be relevant to your ads and website, keep thinking about the mindset of your customer (parent) what they would mostly likely type into the search box.

Note:  Avoid repeating keywords in your list because Google only shows one ad per advertiser on a particular keyword, therefore it’s wasted effort.  

Example If you’re promoting a large school (from FS1,2, primary through secondary), you might start with a general keyword like “School.” That way, for example, your ad would be eligible to appear when someone searches for a wide variety of schools or visits websites about Education.  Remember to group similar keywords into ad groups (so they are a focused and in a targeted group).

For example you may have a group about ‘curriculum’, and a group about ‘learning support’/difficulties’. In order to show more relevant ads to customers (parents), group your keywords and ads into ad groups based on your products, services, or other categories.  If instead you add all your keywords and ads to one ad group, a customer searching for “Primary School” may also see your ad about “IB for Diploma Program”. 

Using our same school scenario if you want to promote an international school, you might create 2 ad groups: one for ‘British School’ and one for ‘learning support’. Your ad group for British Curriculum school could include ads with keywords like “British Certified teachers ” and “English Curriculum.” Your ad group for ‘learning support’ on the other hand could include keywords like “Children of determination” and “special needs”   That way, potential parents could see your ad about ‘special needs’ when they search for “learning support”—not when they search for “International School.”

 

Try to write a good number of relevant keywords say min 5 – 20 keywords per ad group. Remind yourself to think in the mind set of you potential customer (parents) and in each ad group write down keywords that directly relate to that group’s theme.  Note the algorithms will match you keywords to variations. Variations such as misspellings or singular plural versions. So you don’t need to add those.  

 

Continuing with our scenario example if you create an ad group that has a broad match type keyword “American School” then your ad would be automatically appear when someone typed in that inquiry/search word or keyword plus any variation of the keyword such as “International American Schools,” “Best American school,” or “Top American School” .

Always select keywords that relate to potential websites your customers (parents) may visit.  For example “WhichSchooladvisor.com…Which School Advisor”, “Schools recommended by expats”, choosing the right keywords enable your Display Ads to show on relevant websites that parents might be browsing. Another example could be “Schools Recommended by US expats”. Choose keywords that are related to each other and that are relevant to the content your customers (parents) will browse.

Because your ads are matched to relevant websites using your keywords, all keywords used for Display Network campaigns are considered broad match. You can fine-tune your keywords by removing certain keywords from ad groups that target the Display Network.

Example Imagine you create a keyword list that includes terms related to ‘education’. Websites about ‘education’ would be targeted by the keywords on your list. You could also remove the words “University” and “Colleges” to stop your ads from appearing on sites about ‘higher Education’ because you focus is on High school only.

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